


These Words I Collect

by Starry_Wild



Category: A Heist With Markiplier (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_Wild/pseuds/Starry_Wild
Summary: When he had reminded her of when visit days were, he never expected her to risk actually coming back. Yet, similar to the mail he now received every day, she was full of surprises.
Relationships: Yancy "The Prisoner"/Reader, Yancy Iplier/Reader, Yancy/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	These Words I Collect

**Author's Note:**

> Request: 1 emotional Yancy/Reader on visitation day; letters the reader sends Yancy

It was five days after he helped her escape that Yancy received a letter for the first time in the entire prison sentence that he'd lived so far. He was so used to the mail carrier strolling right past his cell block that when the older man stopped, looking at him expectantly, the prisoner just sat there in confusion.

"Hey, son, you gonna come get 'yer mail or just keep sittin' there lookin' dumb?" the carrier rasped out, waving a rather large envelope around from his side of the cell bars.

Despite the fact he could _see_ his name delicately written on the smooth side of the letter, Yancy still spluttered as he asked, "I... I have a letter? Youse sure about that, mista?"

"Is there some other doofus here in the prison that's named Yancy and dances all goofy-like to musical numbers, bud? Come on," he beckoned, holding the letter through the bars for Yancy to take. Despite his teasing remarks, the old man clearly understood his confusion and hesitance. Sympathy swam in his eyes and, in contrast to the demands for the other man to hurry, the deliverer simply held out the envelope patiently. It took another few seconds until Yancy unfroze from where he stood by his nightstand and slowly stepped up to the cell entrance. The envelope felt almost strange in his hands, the writing of his name on the front still perplexing to his mind— which was still trying to catch up. As the old man smiled and left with a whistled tune, the inmate began to open the letter with slightly trembling fingers that caused him to fumble and take longer. By the time he finally opened the sealed envelope, the edges were uneven and torn; and he almost felt _bad_ until the last functioning parts of his brain reminded him that the important part was the actual _letter_.

Wait. _Letters._

Inside, there were multiple pages of careful writing done in blue ink. His heart squeezed at the sight even as his chest began to feel inexplicably light. With meticulous movements, he opened what he presumed to be the first page and began to read.

_Dear Yancy,_

_I can't sign this letter for reasons we both know, but I'm going to take a risk and say you'll know who this is from. I know you don't want to leave your family in prison, but that doesn't mean we can never talk again! I'm going to put down an address you can send mail to at the end of this letter. It's not my home address, obviously, but it's somewhere I can grab my mail and that's a start, right?_

_I wish I could tell you what I found in the box. It was ironic, really, but it's still probably one of the most useful things I can think of for my line of work. Now I just have to make sure I don't lose it like I've lost keys in the past. I remember one time, when I was younger, I lost the ring that had my house key, shed key, and mailbox key..._

The pages of writing went on and on, with the woman telling him stories of her life: hardships growing up, regrets, the things she didn't realize she needed and ended up learning from. She talked about how she wanted to learn from her family's mistakes, and somewhere deep in his chest there was a small ache of pain that he was used to; yet something new was added, too. Small and discreet, yet still noticeable if you looked hard enough, there was a spark of motivation. If she didn't let herself be dragged down by the flaws of her family, then... Maybe Yancy could learn from his parents' mistakes. It might have been too late for him to reconcile, but for once he looked at his childhood from a different perspective. And it was all thanks to her.

_Before I finish up this letter (god, I can't believe I talked about myself for pages like that, haha) I just wanted to make a point to tell you that... I won't try to persuade you to break out or leave the prison. Before we separated that night, you said you'd consider parole, and that's all I can really ask of you. To consider it. But you're your own person, and I'll accept that. You're a big boy, you can make decisions on your own._ Yancy almost laughed at the way the statement was written, sitting on the top portion of the bunk bed in his cell and slightly hunched over the letters he held. _But the one thing I will ask you to do is: remember you have someone out here to call a friend. You helped me out, and I'll never forget that. Plus, you just seemed like a really great guy, even though I know you tell yourself otherwise. So no matter what you choose, keep that in mind. That you have a pal regardless._

_Anyway, I'm really starting to cram my letters and words together, so I'll end this here. I really hope you'll write back, Yancy._

Underneath that last line, instead of her name, was a small doodle of a familiar and intricate box. His heart gave this odd little lurch when his eyes roamed over it, and his lips tugged into an endearing smile. And the next morning, when the guards were passing through to let the prisoners out their cells, the very first thing Yancy asked for was a notebook and pen.

He thought all day about what he would write: what stories he could tell, which inmates he would mention to say how they were, even the more minute details and private ideas like what musical number or dances he wanted to learn then teach the family. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, his hands itched to write and the back of his brain was entirely dedicated to forming the words already since his hands couldn't. Not yet. But after the prison's daily routine was over, dinner being served and inmates having gotten ready for lights out, Yancy turned on the small lamp inside his cell and finally, _finally_ got out his notebook and began to scrawl his messages across the pages. 

Only, he _was_ going to, but then he realized one serious aspect he overlooked: how in the world could he start a letter if they couldn't write her name?

His answer popped into his head not even a second later, and with a wide and goofy grin he immediately put his pen to the paper once more.

_Dear Sweatpea,_

_Lemme tell ya how annoyed that old mail dude was this morning when I just stood there after he said I had a letter. I was shocked right outta my socks, girly. But in a good way. I'm glad I got a letter from youse. I dunno if I'll have as much to write about since prison life is pretty much the same each day, but I'll try my best, yeah?_

As he continued to write, time felt imaginary and arbitrary. He didn't know how long he laid in bed, propped partially up by the couple pillows he had, just scribbling away on the paper; and Yancy was halfway through the second page when he realized, with embarrassment, that he should probably try to write a little neater. So despite his eagerness to put as much of his thoughts down as soon as possible, he forced his hand to slow and write more neatly (though she'd never tell him it wasn't that big a difference, anyway). By the end of his story about the dude Jimmy the Pickle had knocked out cold— the fiery little guy was trying to start feuding with some other people in the family— Yancy decided he should stop before he used up all his material before the week even ended. He considered his closing lines carefully, debating just signing off casually, but ended up going with what his heart was telling him to do.

_I hope youse don't mind me using the nickname, considering we can't write your actual name and all. But I thought it could be a nice little joke, y'know? And... I know it could be real tough, and that I shouldn't get my hopes up, but..._

Then his mind started overthinking the whole thing, and he chose not to bring up visitation day.

_But I hope next time you could send in a little package. Haha!_

At the bottom of the page, he doodled the little cartoon character tattooed on his neck instead of a signature— hearts included.

**\---**

Yancy now exchanged letters with the escaped inmate on a near-daily basis. Sometimes things would go a little off-schedule: the mail in the prison not being delivered that day, or the letters from him not being sent out as fast as they should, or the screening process for the mail takes longer than usual. But both parties always made an effort to immediately reply, two weeks now flying by since his first letter. No package, like he had jokingly requested in his first response to her, but she _did_ promise a gift eventually; which made him thrum with energy and excitement each time the mail carrier stopped in front of his cell.

He learned so much about her: moments from her childhood, her companions today, even her life as a thief (although they'd been cautious with the topic, she still wrote about it sometimes, and that honored Yancy: that she trusted him enough at this point to tell him these things). The lack of a signature became an inside joke between the two of them, where at first they repeated the same doodles but eventually they transformed and they would draw other pictures in replacement of actual signatures. Plus, ever since Yancy's use of _sweetpea_ (which, apparently, she found hilarious and endearing) his friend on the outside picked up on it— every letter they exchanged started off with some sappy term of endearment: _honeybunch, sweetie pie, love muffin, cutie patootie,_ the whole works. They never failed to light up a goofy grin on the prisoner's face and cause his heart to flutter a little more each time, beginning with small brushes of a butterfly's wing up against the inside of his chest to a flurry of flower petals swirling around against the walls of his heart.

However, the one thing that always put a damper on his spirits was visitation day. It was no secret to the other boys in the prison that Yancy had a pen pal, exchanging letters that he cared so deeply about; and so they would ask him all about the mystery author and he would give this secretive yet adoring smile. Then they would follow up these questions with the ticking time bomb of a thought he had been juggling since the first day: visitation day. _Are they going to visit? You both talk all the time, they must be coming, right?_

But Yancy didn't _know_ , couldn't ever summon the courage within him to ask in their letters. He was trying to talk his brain into it, but it was becoming a procrastinating habit that he finally had to face when it was Friday. Two more days until it was the third Sunday of the month, and prisoners would be allowed visitors. Either he asked now, or missed it entirely and spent another visitation day alone— which the inmate told himself he could handle, because what's another day alone when he's been by himself on visitation days for years now?

_So yeah, besides that crazy lunch incident and Shithole Hank nearly poisoning half the gang by accident, things have been pretty calm these last couple of days._

Yancy couldn't help but notice his hand was starting to tremble a little, and after holding in a quick inhale of breath to try and steady himself he wrote down the question that had been nagging him for weeks.

_I shoulda asked before, but do you think you could make visitation day? I didn't wanna assume you forgot, but I thought a friendly reminder would be nice, y'know? You don't have to come, 'specially if you think it'll be a risk, but..._

_I'd really appreciate it if you did._

Not having the strength to say much else, he performed as good a doodle at the bottom of the letter as he could and stuffed it messily into the envelopes the guards had been generously providing him (they gushed and enthused about how romantic it was that he exchanged letters so commonly with someone on the outside; said that Yancy's 'face lit up like it never does anytime else'— he spluttered and blushed and grumpily ignored them and their teasing). The sunlight was just beginning to filter into the cell through the window, the Friday morning looking crisp and hopeful outside the bars that stood in front of the glass; and with one last hopeful look to the letter that he held, Yancy hesitantly brought it up to his lips and lightly kissed it. For good luck.

**\---**

It was Sunday morning, and Yancy woke up to no letter. No notes from his escaped pal, no package, nothing. 

What had once been a common and even expected occurrence now felt like his world was tilted off its axis— the old man pushing the cart of mail past his cell and shooting him a sympathetic and deeply apologetic look as he shambled away to the other blocks in this part of the prison. He understood that we waited too long, that Friday was a bad day to finally send out a letter that held such an important question, but his heart still _ached_ when he didn't get a response all of Saturday. His eyes felt heavy from exhaustion, the inmate having spent a majority of the night staying awake in case there was a rare late delivery, and his neck was sore due to him craning it down during that entire time so he could reread the letters they already exchanged. 

She... wasn't coming, was she?

It was a depressing enough thought that Yancy decided that maybe he should remain in his cell for the day, rather than go out and see all the other members of his family in Happy Trails getting to see _their_ loved ones (maybe that made him a little petty and jealous, but right now he was in quite a mood, so he'd add it to the list of things to think about _later_ ). About an hour into the day, the music he had playing in his ears was disturbed by the sound of something clanging against metal: a signature move of the guards to grab the prisoners' attention; and so his eyes darted up to see the guard standing with his cell door opened wide. 

"Yancy, what the hell are you doin' in your cell right now?" the guard questioned with an incredulous tone, contrasting the _excited_ grin that had crossed their face.

"I..." He hesitated to reveal his glumness, about to start fishing for an excuse, but the officer cut him off before he could even try.

"Son, you have a _visitor._ Now are you gonna come and see them, or what?"

"I... I have a visitor? Youse sure about that, offica?"

"Abso-tutely. Now let's _go_ ," they rushed with a permanent grin, beckoning him with an enthusiastic wave of their hand. It took him no time to hurry up and toss his legs over the side of the bunk bed's mattress and let himself land gently on the tiled floor, the kind guard leading the way to the prison's designated room for inmate-citizen meets. Yancy felt his fingertips trembling, his palms getting clammy as his mind argued against the hope that had entered his heart. Could it be her? But she never replied, even if the logical half of his brain cells argued that it could have been totally possible she couldn't in the time span allowed, and right now he was too nervous and amped-up to _rationalize_ his anxieties. He tried to think of things to calm him down: his favorite dance routine he'd ever learned, the first song he sang with the gang at Happy Trails Penitentiary, how today after visits the cafeteria would serve these really good yet tiny desserts—

He froze as soon as they stepped into the room. She was there, sitting at one of the round tables turned partially away from his direction, fiddling— dare he say it— _timorously_ with the wrapped box in front of her on the flat surface. The package was wrapped a little messily, yet it didn't make it any less appealing; especially with the attention-grabbing bow on top: small, but glittering. It was black with tiny white circles of glitter across the entire thing, reminding him of the concrete poured around the Hollywood stars. And then she looked up, eyes meeting his, and her face erupted into a delighted and jubilant smile that washed away the doubts he ever had about her coming. Yancy could feel tears in his eyes as he walked toward the table, his throat getting choked up and his shaking increasing. Once he was closer, and the escaped thief could see his state, her face fell into concern and despair and _guilt,_ as though she had made him _upset._

"I-I didn't know— I didn't th-think youse was gonna come," he managed out, voice cracking. 

"Yancy," she breathed out sympathetically, the worry dissipating on her face despite the faint traces of guilt remaining. "Of course. I can't _not_ see my best buddy, prison or not."

It was only then that he had came to his senses enough that he observed her: she wore no disguise, openly and unapologetically herself, and he panickedly questioned _why the guards weren't locking her up that instance._ He swerved his head around, looking at the crowd of guards that lingered closer to the edges of the room, giving them their space. They were all watching the two of them, content and proud smiles on their faces. The officer who lead him here, who had stayed a bit behind when they originally entered, stepped forward and put their hand lightly on the inmate's shoulder. "You really think we're gonna stop you two from seeing each other? All us guards agreed: it'll be our little secret," they chuckled, winking at Yancy mischievously then walking off to join the uniformed staff that was filing out the room. For safety, of course, a couple remained; however that was no longer his focus. Yancy just couldn't believe they'd all do this for him, let him see the friend he had made those weeks ago who had ended up becoming so close to him and changing his mindset— his _life._

"I bought you a present?" she finally spoke up, the words coming out more as a questioning offer rather than a statement. She held out the box to him, and the stubborn tears at the back of his eyes prickled in an increasing threat to spill.

"Y-Youse didn't have to do that, y'know I was just jokin' around 'bout the gift 'n all—"

"I wanted to," she replied easily, _simply_ , like it was a universal truth that everyone knew and understood without question.

That answer shut him up completely— partly because he wouldn't argue against that, and partly because his voice was breaking already and if he tried to say something else it would end in blubbering tears— so instead he turned his attention to the present and took it from her with an unsteady hold. 

"Why don'tchya open it on the table? That way you don't gotta hold everything as you unwrap it," she softly laughed. "I know I was holding it out for you, but that was more just for the feeling, y'know?" He nodded as a mute answer, stepping closer to the table so he was now at her side, before setting down the box. He couldn't hear anything clanging or bumping together inside, and a small part of him he hadn't felt in a _long_ time was urging him to lightly shake the box like a child during Christmas Eve: trying to discover the mysteries held inside such ornate wrapping and boxes. With movements as precise as he could manage with his shaking, Yancy pulled apart the ribbon (he had no plan to throw it away, not something that looks so beautiful and dazzling and was from _her_ ) then went on to try and follow suit with the wrapping paper. This proved a harder task, and within seconds he had accidentally torn the thin sheets, but one nervous glance at the ex-inmate beside him quelled his guilt and he proceeded to tear open the rest of the wrapping.

It was a record player. Retro, with silver turning dials— one for volume and one for the installed radio. If he were to place a vinyl on it, it would fit directly in the middle of the case according to the picture on the front of the box. Not only that, but the body of the needle was shaped to resemble a _microphone_ , with the needle serving as the bottom and the place where it was firmly attached to the player round and with fine criss-cross patterns across it. 

"I, uh, I really hope they let you keep it in your room. If they won't, I can return it and get something better, I just thought—"

"Thank youse," he whispered waveringly, and he knew he was absolutely done for when tears escaped from the corners of his eyes and gently tracked down his cheeks. "I love it. This is the best present I coulda ever asked for, outta anythin' anyone's got me." A soft, comforting hand was lightly pressed to his cheek and tenderly moved his head. His friend looked him in the eyes, their colorful irises holding oceans of sympathy and pride and joy and countless other feelings that had filled his own heart. Then, wordlessly, they hugged him tight— arms wrapping over and around Yancy's shoulders and pressing between his shoulder blades while their head fell into place on his left shoulder. Silky hair brushed and tickled his neck, but he didn't mind; instead he gave a small sniffle and settled his muscled arms around their waist, pulling her into him with a delicate carefulness.

"Every third Sunday," she hummed as a promise: one he completely understood. "Any and every time. For however long."

_For however long._

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on my Tumblr: starry-wild.tumblr.com


End file.
